Hence, our job as leaders—the alpha and the omega and everything in between—is abetting the sustained growth and success and engagement and enthusiasm and commitment to Excellence of those, one at a time, who directly or indirectly serve the ultimate customer.
We—leaders of every stripe—are in the “Human Growth and Development and Success and Aspiration to Excellence business.”
“We” [leaders] only grow when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are growing.
“We” [leaders] only succeed when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are succeeding.
“We” [leaders] only energetically march toward Excellence when “they” [each and every one of our colleagues] are energetically marching toward Excellence.
Period.
146. Launch “Project Ray.”
I very rarely “dedicate” a presentation. But a while back I launched a presentation with a PowerPoint slide that read … “For Ray.”
As in: Ray Charles.
Susan and I had just watched the movie Ray on DVD. To be sure, it is a superb piece of work. However, the inspiration for the dedication of the presentation was not the Excellence of the film, but rather that of its subject.
In short:
Ray Charles is the embodiment of the Spirit of Re-imagining!
Time and time—and time—again he chose to Invent & Go His Own Way, to spit in the face of the sure thing, the assured cash flow, the powerful advisers … and instead march in the brand-new musical direction his Spirit willed him to march.
To be sure, the movie is an extraordinary story of overcoming adversity, from blindness to racism to drugs to fame itself. But for me it was, above all, a … Matchless Tribute to the Power & Glory of Gutsy, Lonely Re-imaginings!
To Ray Charles!
Watch Ray.
(Perhaps with close colleagues.)
If you are inclined, make a detailed chart of his Re-imaginings.
(I suspect they will stagger you!)
Start a “Ray File” … or a “Re-imaginings File.”
Scribble musings about your own possible Re-imagining.
Cut out pictures.
Save blog posts.
The “problem” is so so so so so easy to state. We’re already scoring 12-hour days—and keeping up is a nightmare. There’s no “extra time” for … Project Ray! However (trust me on this one): Odds are high, very high, that if you could project forward 10 years, you’d wonder why the hell there was no …
Project Ray.2010.
Or, maybe, to use the designation of the times … You 3.O.
(There is time for Project Ray.2010/You 3.0, for the simple reason that there’s not not time.)
(I am not the first person who’s told you this.)
(I will not be the last person who tells you this.) (But I am right.)
(And the next person who tells you will be right.)
(And maybe, just maybe, you will be spurred to action.)
(And, win or lose, you will be glad you were spurred to action.)
(Time flies.)
(Believe it.)
147. Realism? Not on My Watch!
Assertion:
Realism is the death of progress!
Stomp out realism!
More or less!
We recently finished a summer building project on our Vermont farm. We did our levelheaded best to budget it correctly—getting contractors to rework estimates and redesigning accordingly. (And, hey, I was trained as a construction engineer.) All that said, it looks like the carefully considered $40,000 project will come in at about $70,000. (Um, or so.)
What’s new?
The Big Dig in Boston came in about four times over budget, as I recall. For the Chunnel, I think it was about three times plan. (Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.)
I decided to do a little casual research at a dinner party, asking several people about their homebrew projects. Three questions:
How did you do vs. budget for projects completed a couple of years ago?
If you’d known the real price tag when you started, would you have gone ahead?
In hindsight, was the eventual price tag worth it?
To Q1, the answer ranged from about 5 percent over plan (if you can believe it—I’m skeptical) to five times plan (which I do believe).
As to Q2, four of the six I queried said “no way” would they have started if they’d known what they were getting into—the other two were on the fence.
Concerning Q3, after-the-fact satisfaction, five said, in effect, “Yes! We’d do it again”—all five of those five “yups” were dogmatic that, “Yes,” they would do it again. And one said, “Maybe, maybe not.”
It’s obviously dangerous to extrapolate from such a tiny sample and trivial topic, but my reading of history, business, and in general says this phenomenon is as ordinary as it gets. Furthermore, in the back of one’s mind, one damn well knows that the price tag will be far in excess of what’s planned.
And my point? Yes, you’d better have a superb number-crunching CFO, but if you let him-her rule the roost, there won’t be much left to roost on. Of course I know it’s “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” On the other hand …
Progress (all progress) clearly hinges on illusion and delusion!
As for me, the Cornell master’s degree holder in construction engineering, I’d vote yes in hindsight for every one of my major home projects—even if, as is true, paying for them has added in a nontrivial way to my speechifying “nights on the road” tally.
Cherish your dreamers!
Master “dreamer nurturing.”
Practical translation:
Do you insist that every project team, even a small one, has an “unrealistic” dreamer on board?
Do you, as boss, make sure that as you necessarily hold the dreamer’s toes to the fire, you stop short of putting out her or his fire?
Bottom line: 2.476 (range, 2.218 to 2.886) hearty cheers for dreamers’ fantasies! Screw it … THREE hearty cheers for those dreamers and their fantasies,*
* (*My opinion? A fantasy pursued is a “win”—100 percent of the time.) lose or win, dead or alive.
Wow
148. If No WOW, Then … No Go.
Does “it” Pop?
Does “it” Sparkle?
Does “it” make you Grin?
Is “it” … WOW?
If “it” (grand or mundane) isn’t WOW … redo it!
Or don’t do it!
This is … Your Day.
Not “their” day.
This Day belongs … ULTIMATELY … to You.
Not “them.”
Cubicle slaves unite!
Technicolor Titans rejoice!
Throw off the Shackles of Conformity!
Just say/shout a throaty “No!” to Non-WOW!
So...
WOW!
Now!
No bull.
This is doable.
(I own no rose-colored glasses. Few 67-year-olds do. I have crappy days—and crappy months. And, for that matter, crappy years. And, alas, I give lousy speeches—or, at least, not-so-great ones. But I am unable, in anything I do, to be satisfied with less than an 8 on the 1-to-10 WOW-o-meter. That’s as true for the brush-cutting micro-project I do most every day in summer on my Vermont farm as it is for the speeches-for-profit … and this book. Why not WOW-as-“ordinary”-goal????)
Yes.
This is … your … life.
This is … your … moment.
NOW YOU’RE COOKING!
Think about WOW/non-WOW in apparently trivial terms: Odds are reasonably high you’ll cook dinner tonight. And odds are you’re tired; among other things, you had a fight with your piss-head boss this afternoon. And besides, your significant other is rarely appreciative of your culinary efforts on those occasions that you do bust your back. So you heat up a can of chili. (I love canned chili.)
Or you can stretch. And if you do stretch, even just a couple of times a w
eek, even once a week, odds are very high you’ll become a pretty damn good cook, and terrific meals will become a centerpiece of your relationship with your significant other. And the more you follow the virtuous circle, the more you’ll enjoy screwing around with your cooking and the more …
Fact is, guaranteed, the world will be a different place a year from now, thanks to spicing up a routine activity with a few tablespoons of Wow. That’s WOW in a nutshell. (Although I do, as I said, love canned chili.)
149. What Makes You So Special?-Or: “Only” Beats “Best.”
I guarantee that any reader—from anywhere, in any business—can learn something from the following book:
Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America, by retail guru George Whalin.
Guarantee?
Yup!
These are stores that, literally, give new meaning to the words “special”—and “Gaspworthy” & “WOW”! That personify one of my “Top 10 Favorite Quotes,” from Jerry Garcia (The Grateful Dead):
“You don’t want to be merely the best of the best. You want to be the only ones who do what you do.”
Retail Superstars begins, naturally (!), in Fairfield, Ohio, home to Jungle Jim’s International Market. The adventure in “shoppertainment,” as Jungle Jim’s calls it, begins in the parking lot and goes on to 1,600 cheeses and, yes, 1,400 varieties of hot sauce—not to mention 12,000 wines priced from $8 to $8,000 a bottle; all this is brought to you by 4,000 vendors from around the world. Like virtually all the stores in this book, customers flock to the doors from every corner of the globe.
There’s Abt Electronics in Chicago, Zabar’s in Manhattan, and Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frakenmuth, Michigan—a town of just 5,000. Bronner’s 98,000-square-foot “shop” features the likes of 6,000 Christmas ornaments, 50,000 trims, and anything else you can name if it pertains to Christmas.
There’s the Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida.
And Junkman’s Daughter in Atlanta.
And Smoky Mountain Knife Works in Sevierville, Tennessee.
We finish the tour where we started—in Ohio. This time we visit Hartville Hardware in Hartville, Ohio.
These stores demonstrate-prove so many things:
You can create a worldwide attraction and thrive as an independent in the Age of the Big-Box Retailer!
You can do anything!
You can be from anywhere!
You can make anything … bizarrely-amazingly-stupendously special!
“Customer care” finds a new definition!
“Showmanship” finds a new definition!
If you run a training department … you can learn from this book.
If you run a sales department of 1 or 101 people … you can learn from this book.
If you run a purchasing department … dedicated to “bizarrely-amazingly-stupendously-special” internal customer care … you can learn from this book.
You can learn about … Special.
You can learn about being … “the only ones who do what we do.”
You can learn about … “experience marketing.” You can learn about … the irrelevance of Supersized Competitors … if you are special enough.
You can learn about … Sustaining EXCELLENCE.
Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America gives new meaning to my trademark phrase:
EXCELLENCE. Always.
If Not EXCELLENCE, What?
If Not EXCELLENCE Now, When?
As I said, with such outrageous self-certainty: I guarantee that any reader engaged in any activity, who wants to, can learn from this book.* (*And you really should visit some of these stores—call it a Tour of Excellence.)
So:
Is your product or service offering …
Special?
So … bloody damned Special … it takes your and your customers’ “breath away”?
Live the super-amazing-incredible-WOW-only-ones-who-do-what-we-do FLAVOR of SPECIAL. (Or die—professionally—trying.) (Why not!)
WOW AS LEGITIMATE ASPIRATION: MY EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
“They” say WOW! is “too much.” Life is pretty ordinary from day to day. Perhaps that’s true—but the “impossible” is true, too. In my short six-decade visit to the planet, a few monumental things that couldn’t possibly happen did in fact happen:
Hitler and Tojo were defeated; and the defeated nations became great democracies and great economic powers. (I was born the day American soldiers landed in North Africa.)
India gained its independence and became the world’s largest democracy—and eventually started on the path toward economic preeminence.
China’s peasants revolted—and 35 years later embraced capitalism.
Europe became a huge and shining symbol of peace and prosperity and democracy after centuries of being earth’s bloodiest real estate.
Though the path was and is bumpy and setbacks have occurred, various flavors of democracy bloomed around the world.
African Americans saw the Civil Rights Movement achieve breakthrough after breakthrough—and an African American became President of the United States.
The Berlin Wall was erected—and 30 years later, to the surprise of almost all, fell virtually overnight.
Nelson Mandela was jailed and persevered and was freed and forgave and became President of post-apartheid South Africa—with virtually no bloodshed.
Yuri Gagarin traveled into outer space.
Neal Armstrong set foot on the moon.
The sky became filled with satellites—transforming communication.
Computers, generation after generation after generation, changed effectively everything.
The cell phone changed our basic way of communicating.
The Internet changed our basic forms of communication—and much, much else.
• Numerous diseases were conquered—and many were contained.
An organ was successfully transplanted.
America made peaceful transition after peaceful transition after peaceful transition as the presidency changed hands, from political party to political party.
Each adventure above required traveling a long, long road—with potholes galore. But the “impossible” did become possible and then reality … again and again and again and again.
“Wow” as “too much”?
Shame on you.
Think again.
150. Is It “Gaspworthy”?
Will your plan for addressing today’s “mundane” task make others “gasp” at its audacity?
As an alumnus of McKinsey and Co., I received an email from the firm in 2004 reporting its response to the tsunami in Southeast Asia. I read it, nodded, and cast it aside. (But did not “delete” for some unknown reason.) I returned to it a few hours later—and was moved to send McKinsey’s managing partner an email. I said that the response was “perfectly adequate,” but I added that business has a tawdry rep these days (and that was before the financial meltdown), and that McKinsey is viewed far and wide as the home of the premier Counselors to Global Top Management; so, I chided, I saw it as a missed opportunity in that McKinsey’s response failed to … “make me gasp by its audacity.”
No surprise, I got no response from McKinsey’s top dog. But I also copied my old McKinsey pal and In Search of Excellence coauthor, Bob Waterman—who offered his hearty support. (Thanks, as always, Bob.)
Forget McKinsey. The Bigger Point is that in our “responses” to tragedy and opportunity alike, “good enough” is a less than scintillating way to pass through life.
How about, instead, as aspiration, my cobbled-together term …
“gaspworthy”?
So, does your response to today’s principal “chore” qualify for a … Medal of Certified Gaspworthiness?
(Surely, you say, I [Tom] live in the land of make-believe. There’s a lot of stuff that just needs doing—and need not produce a “gasp.” I acknowledge that’s apparently true, and indeed the default state of na
ture. Yet this book is mostly dedicated to the idea of little things that aren’t in fact little at all—so-called “little things” that are in actual fact “gaspworthy.” They range from Singapore’s two-cent candies at the incoming immigration desk (#131) to the power of a “simple” “Thank you.” These “small acts,” consciously considered, are, collectively, the difference between success and failure at anything from waiting tables to running for President of the United States. In short, I sincerely believe that damn near anything can be made … “gaspworthy.”)
When in doubt, make your default position the Steve Jobs Standard. Ask: How does your, say, project score on a scale topped by his …
“Insanely Great!”
Well, is it?
BEAMER POETRY
From a BMW print ad, September 2009:
Joy
On the back of this three-letter word we built a company.
Independent of Everyone.
Accountable to no-one but the driver.
We don’t just build cars.
We are the creators of emotion.
We are the guardians of ecstasy, the thrills and chills, The laughs and smiles and all the words that can’t be found in the dictionary.
We are the joy of driving.
No car company can rival our history.
Replicate our passion, our vision.
Innovation is our backbone, but Joy is our heart.
We will not stray from our three-letter purpose. We will nurture it.
We will make Joy smarter. We will push it, test it, break it—then build it again.
More efficient, more dynamic.
We will give the world the keys to Joy and they will take it for a drive.
And while others try to promise everything, we promise one thing.
The most personal, cherished and human of all emotions.
This is the story of BMW.
This is the story of Joy.
So can you match that in describing your process reengineering project?
The Little Big Things Page 32